Wireless data communication operators often expend significant resources in order to license and broadcast over a dedicated communications frequency spectrum. Theoretically, this license awards the operator exclusive access to the licensed spectrum across a specific geographic region or area. Based on their exclusive rights, operators may advantageously plan where and how they wish to allocate network resources, including, but not limited to: network controllers (e.g., network switching centers and/or network managers), databases, base stations, gateways, signal repeaters, etc. Operators within a network may also use their proprietary rights to determine which frequencies to employ at each base station within a particular network topology. In this way, licensed operators can effectively optimize the design of their data communications networks to maximize system integrity and throughput.
In the case of high-bandwidth Long-Term Evolution (LTE) wireless communications networks, the networks may be vulnerable to deliberate jamming signals designed to attack specific frequency and time resources for a portion of the frequency bandwidth, such as control channels and random access channels in an uplink. An inexpensive jamming signal device can transmit in the timeslots and frequencies used for these channels, rendering the channels unusable. Unless these jamming signals are detected and avoided, users in a wide area around the jamming signal may experience a Denial of Service.